Who We Are - Chapter 6: Tom Scott and the Pennsylvania Railroad in the Civil War - Part 1
By Anton Chaitkin; Copyright Anton Chaitkin
Chapter 6: Tom Scott and the Pennsylvania Railroad in the Civil War
Part 1 of 2
By Anton Chaitkin, copyright Anton Chaitkin
This chapter introduces Philadelphia railroad executives -- political nationalists – who organized the Union’s military logistics, and who went on to create the nation’s steel and oil industries.
Since Americans today are much less familiar with productive processes than were previous, more skilled generations, some prefatory remarks are in order.
Modern living conditions (including food from large-scale farming, medical products, transportation, etc.) are based on the growth and continual upgrading of manufacturing and infrastructure.[1]
Among the most important components of modern production are steel[2], petroleum[3], and electric power.
All production -- industry and agriculture -- stems from scientific discoveries.[4]
But national economic strategy has always been decisive as to whether advances will occur.
Now, there is a good chance that the reader has been taught the doctrine of “mainstream” economics,[5]
That it is unwise for a government to try to protect the growth of a country’s own industries from foreign competition;
Or the rather hysterical claim, that this free-trade doctrine has been America’s standard policy since its founding;
Or even the wild assertion, that protective tariffs cannot promote industry – that they have never succeeded in doing so.
It is indisputable that U.S. industry grew at a very fast pace after President Lincoln and the Congress sharply increased tariff rates, and that such industrial growth was the stated goal of Lincoln and his allies. Is this sequence of events absolute proof that the higher tariff rates caused the growth? Perhaps not.
But we will show, in this and succeeding chapters, that the leading protectionists themselves built or sponsored the new industries vital to America’s achievement of modern living standards.
Their fight for national and world progress, and their shattering collision with the gods of transatlantic finance in the 1870s, has not been the subject of much serious historical inquiry since the financiers gained a stifling power over U.S. affairs.
At the outset of this probe, let us clear the air.
It may be thought that wealth, privilege, and corporate power are synonymous with abuse and immorality, regardless of any good the rich may do. There is real scientific truth in the Biblical warning, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to get into Heaven.[6]
The rebuttal that progress can’t occur without amassed capital, while true, does not satisfy the mind of a person with human sympathies and a resentment of injustice suffered by the underclass.
It is necessary to hold fast to our moral judgment, and at the same time to become acquainted with the dynamic shaping history, often below public perception: the collision between opposed strategies for guiding national affairs – often involving rich people on both sides. The outcome of this contest has meant a good life or disaster for humanity.
These considerations do not settle the matter. Private power – oligarchy -- has become the source of the greatest threat to human civilization. The public good has required governmental measures to tame private power, as well as to utilize it. The present narrative can help to clarify the continuum between these two elements of the fight for progress.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Anton’s Substack to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.